Daily Chartbook #257

Welcome back to Daily Chartbook: the day’s best charts & insights, curated.

1. US home values. "The total worth of U.S. homes hit a record $47 trillion in June as a scarcity of houses for sale propped up values."

2. Lending standards vs. financial conditions. "The recent tightening of bank lending standards is sharply contrasting with how low financial conditions continue to be."

3. Corporate resilience. "Despite some contraction in recent quarters, non-financial firms' net profit margins and interest coverage ratios are still twice as high as they were in the late 1990s."

4. Default rates. "Default rates among HY-rated US non-financial corporations have risen, although they remain below historical averages."

5. Debt burdens. "Corporate debt service burdens [are] extremely light today, with S&P 500 firms paying around 3% interest on their debts even as 10y Treasuries yield 4% given that firms took advantage of the low interest rate environment post the (GFC) to lock in cheap debt."

6. AI investment boom. "Our economists estimate AI investment could approach $100 billion in the U.S. and $200 billion globally by 2025."

7. Alternative inflation. "Real time headline inflation of 0.5% instead of 3.2%.  Yes still a 0 handle on real time headline inflation. Our Alt Core inflation = 1.5% instead of official BLS 4.7%."

8. Recession odds. "We lowered our 12-month recession odds to 20%."

9. Producer prices (I). "In m/m terms, PPI inflation +0.3% vs. +0.2% est. & 0% prior (rev down from +0.1%); core +0.3% vs. +0.2% est. & -0.1% prior (rev down from +0.1%)."

10. Producer prices (II). "July PPI inflation +0.8% year/year vs. +0.7% est. & +0.2% prior (rev up from +0.1%); core +2.4% vs. +2.3% est. & +2.4% prior."

11. Producer prices (III). "Forty percent of the July advance in the index for final demand services can be traced to a 7.6-percent rise in prices for portfolio management."

12. Consumer sentiment. "The headline sentiment print declined on the month from 71.6 to 71.2...with current conditions rising modestly but future expectations declining."

13. Inflation expectations. "Median inflation expectations softer in August per UMich: 1y expectations fell from 3% to 2.9%; 5-10y expectations fell from 3.4% to 3.3%."

14. Oil vs. inflation expectations. "The renewed strength of the oil price...has coincided with a renewed pickup in inflation expectations...The correlation between the Brent crude oil price and the five-year five-year forward inflation expectation rate has been 0.88 since 2011."

15. Fed funds rate vs. market pricing. "The bond market is no longer pricing cuts in 2023 and is pricing fewer cuts in 2024H1."

16. Treasuries flows. Inflows to US Treasuries have totaled $127bn YTD and are on track for a record $206bn in 2023.

17. MMF flows. QTD money market funds inflows of $145bn are outpacing Q2.

18. Global equity fund flows. "One interpretation: after the major inflows of 2020 and 2021 ... and a major slowdown in 2022 ... the almighty US retail investor has largely been sitting on their hands in 2023."

19. BTFD. "Retail investor dip buying is alive and well."

20. EM equities flows. Emerging market equities funds saw their largest inflow ($6bn) since April.

21. Healthcare flows. Healthcare equity funds saw their largest inflow ($1.4bn) since April.

22. Energy stocks vs. oil. There's a wide divergence in the performance of Energy stocks and the price of oil.

23. Expensive SPX. "Of the 20 valuation measures we track, the S&P 500 looks undervalued on just one: its required return relative to that of bonds."

24. SPY puts. SPY put volumes have been trending higher since the start of July.

25. 0DTE volume. "We have a new 0DTE record."

26. Private client allocations. Allocations to equities remain above average while cash levels remain below average.

27. Buybacks. "We have seen very strong momentum in buyback announcements so far this year...[but] buybacks as a share of profits are still low."

28. Profit margins. "S&P 500 ex-Energy profit margins have sequentially improved."

See:

29. Seasonality. "Historically, the rally in US stocks stalls toward the end of pre-election years."

30. Limited upside. And finally, “upside, as priced by option markets, has cheapened considerably over the past few months. This is especially true for the S&P 500, for which the cheapening has coincided with a 17% year-to-date rally.”

Have a great weekend!